Monday, September 30, 2013

A rapist has been jailed for nine years because of forensic evidence preserved by his victims thanks to an EastEnders storyline 25 years ago.

Salvador Orozco, 49, dragged his victim off the street and subjected her to a brutal sexual attack in Gateshead in 1990.

He fled to Hawaii and evaded justice for more than two decades, until new technology allowed him to identified and brought back to the UK for trial.

During the trial his victim, who was 20 at the time of the attack, told jurors at Newcastle Crown Court that the vital evidence which led to his conviction was only preserved because she remembered an Eastenders storyline.

When character Kathy Beale, played by Gillian Taylforth, was raped by James Willmott-Brown, in 1988, her attacker was convicted in part because she knew to write down a comprehensive account, and to avoid washing to preserve evidence on her body.

She said: “Kathy had been raped by Willmott-Brown and I remember watching the story. 'I knew I had not to have a shower or bath and I knew it was important to remember as much as I could.'

The court heard that during the attack Orozco has put on an oriental accent, saying :'My name’s Sushi. It’s Japanese.'

He was living in Gateshead at the time and working as a doorman at a club before making the attack on 17 May not far from Gateshead Metro Station.

After the attack the victim rushed home and her husband discovered her wrapped in a duvet in the living room, Newcastle Crown Court heard.

Her injuries were so severe that she could not be examined at first but samples were taken from her which would ultimately lead to the conviction of Orozco.

He was extradited from his home in Hawaii earlier this year on the strength of the forensic evidence, which was able to be used after a cold case review six years ago.

At court Orozco claimed that he had had consensual sex with the woman, but he was convicted of rape by the jury. He was cleared of attempted buggery and jurors were unable to reach a decision on a charge of indecent assault.

Sentencing today, Judge John Milford said: 'I find it very unlikely that a 20-year-old married woman would choose to engage in consensual relations with a complete stranger that she had just met.

'The complainant to me was an honest woman. You on the other-hand did not give a favourable impression and gave me no doubt about how this started.

'You grabbed her from behind, dragged her into a yard and detained her against her will in a state of abject terror. The effect this rape has had on the victim was very considerable. 'She was unable to live in her marital home, she was unable to return to her job and this incident had a most damaging effect on her marriage. 'That marriage broke down.'

After the sentence his victim said: 'I really want to thank everyone: friends, family, police and victim support. I could not have got through the last 23 years without their ongoing support.

'I want my case to give hope to other victims of rape; just because the offender is not caught or prosecuted at the time does not mean you won't get justice in the future.'

Nicola Musgrove of Northumbria Police said: 'This was a particularly violent offence of a stranger rape which has had a lasting impact not only upon the victim, but was also remembered by the officers who investigated the crime 23 years ago.

'This case shows that together with our partners in the CPS, we are committed to doing all we can to bring offenders to justice.

'The verdict sends a clear message to offenders of these types of crime that there is no hiding place and we are determined to support victims to seek justice and help them to achieve closure after they have suffered such serious crimes.

'Crimes of this nature are unusual and I hope that this verdict today will encourage victims of rape and other sexual offences to come forward and provide reassurance that their case will be thoroughly and professionally investigated; no matter how long it takes'

A Brief History Of American Race Relations–Conflict Is Inherent; Tragedy Is Frequent

By Jared Taylor

I have been asked to give you a history of American race relations in a half hour—not an easy thing to do. It would be easier to give you a history in a single word, and that word would be conflict. Conflict is the normal state of race relations anywhere in the world, and for reasons that I believe are deeply biological.

Humans have an exquisite sensitivity to differences between their group and other groups. Group conflict is as old as our species. Humans are prepared to fight each other for all kinds of reasons: ethnicity, language, nationality, religion, and even for political reasons, but of all the kinds of conflict, racial conflict is the most chronic and difficult to control, and that’s because race is part of biology. It is immediately visible, and is usually an indicator of differences in behavior and culture and not just a difference in appearance.

Wherever you find people of more than one race trying to share the same territory, there is conflict.

American race relations in the Anglo-American sense began in 1607 with the founding of the Jamestown colony on the coast of Virginia. Jamestown is not only where American race relations begin, it is also a fascinating example of the inevitability of racial conflict.

The purpose of the colony was to find gold, but the intentions of the colonists towards the Indians were entirely benevolent. In fact, the English, aware of the Spanish reputation for brutality in the New World, consciously wanted to be different and better.

The English, moreover, had no preconceived notions of racial superiority, and saw the Indians—or “naturals” as they called them—as essentially no different from themselves. This was in direct contrast to their view of Moors or black Africans whom they did think of as aliens. Some of the Jamestown colonists believed that the “naturals” really were white people whose skin was dark because they painted themselves so often.

In any case, the 100 or so men who started the colony were very careful to find a place for their encampment that was unclaimed and uninhabited. They wished to cause no offense. The leader of the colony, Edward-Maria Wingfield, decreed that since the English came in peace, there would be no fortifications and no training in arms.

There was contact with the Indians, mostly peaceful but sometimes tense, and before the encampment was two weeks old, hundreds of Indians attacked the camp in an attempt to wipe out the colony. There were deaths on both sides, and the English would have been massacred if they had not panicked the Indians with cannon fire. It was only after this narrow escape that the English built the three-sided stockade so familiar to American school children.

The colony went through very hard times, but survived. Despite that bad start before the walls went up, the English genuinely tried to have good relations with the Indians, but to their disappointment, it was the tribes who were closest to them who liked them the least and the ones furthest away who were friendly and willing to trade. This seems to be a general principle of race relations: they are better at a distance.

I don’t know how much I can assume about this audience’s knowledge of colonial history, but the chief of the neighboring Indians was named Powhatan, and his favorite daughter, Pocahontas, converted to Christianity and married the English planter John Rolfe. That was in 1614, and it inaugurated a period of real harmony. The new head of the colony, George Thorpe, was especially solicitous of the Indians, whom he genuinely tried to help. When English dogs barked at Indians, he had them publicly hanged.

But four years after Pocahontas married John Rolfe, Chief Powhatan died, and his younger brother, Opchanacanough, became chief. Opchanacanough did not have a marriage alliance with the English, and he wanted to drive the invaders out. In 1622, four years after he became chief, Opchanacanough struck. By then there were about 1,200 English in the colony, spread out in several different locations. Every morning, Indians would come to work with the English on farms and in workshops, and on March 22, they were to all rise up and exterminate the colonists. The main settlement at Jamestown was warned, however, and the men kept their weapons handy and nothing happened, but in other areas there was complete surprise, and the Indians killed about 400 colonists. Interestingly, they were especially brutal to George Thorpe, who had hanged dogs that annoyed Indians and who had been so concerned about their welfare.

There was war on Opchanacanough, and reprisals, but the two groups returned to peaceful relations, just as before.

Amazingly, in 1644—22 years later—Opchanacanough launched an identical sneak attack, and this time managed to kill between 400 and 500 people in yet another attempt to exterminate the English. This time the English went on what amounted to their own extermination campaign, killing many Indians, including Opchanacanough. Two years later, in 1646, the Virginia General Assembly noted that the natives were “so routed and dispersed that they are no longer a nation, and we now suffer only from robbery by a few starved outlaws.”

Here we have what I would call the inherent tragedy of race relations. The English appear to have brought with them genuinely cooperative intentions. They were unaggressive and trusting and had no sense of racial superiority towards the Indians. This was in complete contrast to their feelings towards the first blacks who appeared in Jamestown in 1619, whom colonists considered alien and inferior. As we look back on the Jamestown colony, it seems as promising an effort to establish peaceful race relations as could be imagined for the times.

And yet the very presence of the English was an act of aggression. The Indians were there first. Someone is always there first. We may deplore the series of Pearl Harbors that Opchanacanough launched on the colonists, but that was the only way the Indians could have driven out the white man and remained masters in their own house. Those attacks failed and the Indians were destroyed.

And this is the story of the conquest of the continent. The intentions of whites—sometimes good, often bad—really did not matter. The fundamental fact is that one people had the land, and another, more advanced and powerful people wanted the land. The result was dispossession, and even now, despite a great deal of intermixing, Indians are a distinct people with a distinct identity that shows how difficult assimilation is across racial lines, even after 400 years. Race relations mean conflict.

Bombshells and Baby Daddies: How Single Moms Are Destroying Kids and Society

Any woman who decides to have a child without a husband is putting her baby at risk of poverty.

Former USC basketball star Brynn Cameron has just had baby number two out of wedlock with yet another sports star. Her first baby daddy was NFL quarterback Matt Leinart and the newest addition to her growing family is the child of the NBA’s Blake Griffin.

Cameron is neither married nor in a relationship with either sperm-donor. (Rumor has it the stars of the NHL are competing with the pros of the PGA to see who will be next in line for PDA with the leggy blonde.)

While Cameron may not be struggling as a single mother because of her reported $15k a month child support paycheck (from baby daddy #1), the money alone will not protect her children from her stupid choice to raise them without a partner. Worse, Cameron’s lifestyle may seem attractive to her young fans who will suffer far more harm than she if they follow in her ill-advised footsteps.

Time and time again, statistics prove children raised in single-parent homes suffer compared to their peers in stable, married households. And yet, fauxminists still insist that single mothers are superior because they’re fighting the patriarchy… or something equally unintelligent.

In an essay entitled “The Increase in Single Mothers is Actually a Good Thing,” Hugo Schwyzer claims that the rise in single motherhood is a result of women having babies with men they find inferior and thus not marriage material. Schwyzer uses an example of a woman whose “boyfriend was so dependent that she had to buy his cigarettes. Marrying him never entered her mind.”

Perhaps having sex with him should never have entered her mind.

Why are today’s women so stupid they allow men they wouldn’t trust to run errands deposit their DNA inside of them? Perhaps it’s related to the lie from the progressive feminists that birth control works and there is such a thing as consequence-free sex. Here’s a secret: It doesn’t and there isn’t.

Any woman who decides to have a baby without a husband (not a baby daddy or a guy who visits on the weekend) needs to understand she is making the choice to put her baby and society at risk for the unforgivable disadvantages of poverty, teen pregnancy, sexual abuse, a life of crime and incarceration and suicide.

Now work for your benefits: British Ministers to unveil tough crackdown on payments to jobless

The long-term unemployed are to be told they must do an unpaid full-time job or be stripped of their benefits.

A dramatic extension of the conditions attached to unemployment handouts will be unveiled at the Conservative party conference next week, according to well-placed sources.

Ministers are convinced a new US-style ‘work for the dole’ scheme will help to reduce Britain’s vast benefits bill and curb the something-for-nothing culture.

It is expected that claimants who go through the Government’s main back-to-work scheme, the Work Programme, but fail to find a job, will be required to take part in unpaid community activities or work experience. Those who refuse to do so face losing their welfare payments.

Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith told the Daily Mail: ‘It’s not acceptable for people to expect to live a life on benefits if they’re able to work.’

A poll today finds overwhelming support for stricter conditions for the long-term unemployed.

The YouGov survey shows most voters believe jobseekers should carry out work experience or community work in order to receive their benefits.

By a margin of nearly five to one – 56 per cent to 12 per cent – they support the introduction of ‘workfare’ for the long-term unemployed compared to the status quo.

Two thirds of those questioned – 67 per cent – felt workless mothers with children under four should be excluded from doing community work in return for benefits.

But only one in four – 25 per cent – thought those with mental health conditions who are capable of work should be excluded from workfare, and only one in five – 22 per cent – thought those with physical disabilities who are capable of working should be exempt.

However, the centre-Right think tank Policy Exchange, which commissioned the survey of 1,930 people, warned that forcing those with physical and mental health problems to work would be counterproductive.

In a report published today, it says the Government should pilot workfare schemes for specific groups of jobseekers, including those who leave the Work Programme without finding a job after at least two years of support, either through lack of effort or experience.

The Government has already carried out pilot schemes which suggest significant numbers of jobless claimants would rather lose their handouts than get out of bed and do a stint of unpaid work.

Officials suspect many of those who stop claiming are working in the black economy and would rather lose their welfare than give up their undeclared earnings.

Mr Duncan Smith said: ‘The welfare state rightly provides a safety net for those out of work. But in return, jobseekers must do everything they can to get into work, that’s only fair.’

Ed Holmes, senior economics fellow at Policy Exchange, said: ‘Making people work in return for their benefits is clearly popular with the public but workfare is not suitable for everyone.

‘These findings underline that fact that the public feel it shouldn’t be the responsibility of government to prop people up and find them work.’

Figures yesterday showed an increasing number of long-term jobless have found employment under the Government’s flagship back-to-work scheme.

More than 168,000 have been helped into a lasting job through the Work Programme to the end of June.

The figure is an increase of 37,000 in the three months to June, said the Department for Work and Pensions.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of other countries. The only real difference, however, is how much power they have. In America, their power is limited by democracy. To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges. They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did: None. So look to the colleges to see what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way. It would be a dictatorship.

Sunday, September 29, 2013

More Muslim culture in Britain

An illegal immigrant who attacked a ballet dancer, broke his neck and left him lying in the street has had his sentence increased by the Court of Appeal after being declared 'ruthless, callous and a danger to the public'.

Mohammed Ali Mohamoed, now 28, was originally jailed for a total of 13 years for assaulting Jack Widdowson on a disused canal towpath in Cardiff.

But three appeal judges have unanimously ruled the sentence was inadequate because the trial judge wrongly thought Mohamoed, of Splott, Cardiff, would be automatically deported on completing his sentence.

Lord Justice Pitchford, sitting with Mr Justice Spencer and Mr Justice Stewart, ruled there was no such thing as automatic deportation - and Mohamoed could spend years resisting removal from the UK on the grounds that it would infringe his human rights.

The judge quashed the 13-year term imposed at Cardiff Crown Court last June and substituted an extended sentence to meet the danger Mohamoed could pose to the public if released from prison but not immediately deported.

The judge said: 'In our view, so targeted, so ruthless and so callous were the circumstances of this offence that this man quite plainly is a danger to the public.'

The appeal court allowed a challenge by the Attorney General Dominic Grieve QC to the adequacy of the original sentence imposed by Mr Justice Wyn Williams and replaced it with an extended sentence of 18 years, composed of an immediate custodial term of 13 years, plus an additional five years on licence.

The overall sentence means that, whenever he is released from prison, Mohamoed will remain under supervision for the full 18-year period, or until he is deported.

Mohamoed was found guilty of causing grievous bodily harm with intent to Mr Widdowson, then aged 19 and from Somerset, on November 5 2011.

Mr Widdowson, who was an apprentice dancer at the Bern Ballet Company in Switzerland, suffered neck injuries so serious that it was at first thought he would be left paralysed and unable to dance again.

But eight months after the attack he had returned to dancing in what his family called a 'miracle' recovery. His father Dr Julian Widdowson said his 'incredible flexibility' may have saved his life.

Mr Widdowson’s mobile phone had been stolen and he had been left for dead on the outskirts of Cardiff city centre near East Tyndall Street at 00.45. He had been visiting his brother who was studying at Cardiff University.

'Celebrating diversity' is Britain's new State religion. But don't praise the Lord!

By Richard Littlejohn

The persecution of practising Christians in Britain has been a recurring theme of this column. Publicly-funded bodies seem to take a perverse delight in targeting staff with a strong Christian faith.

‘Celebrating diversity’ is our new State religion. We must accommodate all beliefs and, in the case of extremist Islam, tolerate practices which most people in this country find alien and abhorrent.

If you’re Muslim, special prayer rooms will be set aside for you. Hospital canteens will force everyone to eat halal meat. Feel free to wear the veil, madam. If you’re a Pagan, you’ll be granted time off work to celebrate the Summer Solstice.

But if you’re Christian, you praise the Lord at your peril. Take that crucifix off now, or find another job.

This week, a Christian doctor lost his appeal against dismissal for sending a prayer to his colleagues by email. Consultant paediatrician David Drew thought the 16th century prayer, To Give And Not To Count The Cost, by St Ignatius Loyola, would be motivational. It reads:

Teach us, good LordTo serve as You deserve,To give and not to count the cost,To fight and not to heed the wounds,To toil and not to seek for rest,To labour and not to ask for any reward,Save that of knowing that we do Your will.

The prayer might not be to everyone’s taste, but I can’t understand why anyone would be remotely offended by it. What if Dr Drew had sent round a copy of Kipling’s inspirational poem:

If you can keep your head when all about youAre losing theirs and blaming it on you ....

Would that have been a hanging offence? Of course not.

Dr Drew was hauled before a disciplinary committee and told to keep his religious beliefs to himself. When he refused, he was found guilty of committing ‘gross misconduct and insubordination’ and sent packing with his P45.

You don’t have to be a Bible-bashing Godbotherer to feel disquiet over an industrial tribunal’s decision to uphold his sacking.

Dr Drew claims that his bosses at Walsall Manor Hospital were looking for an excuse to get rid of him because he had consistently accused them of putting patient safety at risk.

He’s almost certainly right, so why did they choose to sack him over his ‘motivational’ email? Simple: they knew that a devout Christian doesn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of convincing a tribunal that he’s been the victim of religious discrimination.

The corridors of the industrial tribunals system are littered with the corpses of Christians sacrificed on the altar of ‘diversity’.

Members of tribunals are trained to be concerned only with upholding the rights of perceived ‘persecuted minorities’. Their verdicts are guided by the doctrines of ‘sexism’, ‘racism’ and a litany of fashionable ‘phobias’.

Adherents of ‘minority’ religions will always get the benefit of the doubt. But Christians are on a hiding to nothing, since they represent the ‘oppressors’.

An old trades union friend of mine who until recently sat on an industrial tribunal in London explained to me how it works.

If a woman or a member of an ethnic minority is sacked for whatever reason, their lawyers will always advise them to claim ‘sexism’ or ‘racism’. Employers will be considered guilty as charged unless they can prove their innocence.

Take the case of 21-year-old call centre worker Elizabeth Cowhig, from Liverpool, who was this week awarded £13,000 after alleging that she had suffered unwanted sexual advances from her male boss.

There doesn’t appear to be any evidence to support her claim. It was her word against his. Miss Cowhig’s boss said she’d been sacked because she wasn’t up to the job.

But employment judge Dawn Shotter decided in her favour ‘on the balance of probabilities’. Maybe the judge suspected her boss of being a Christian.

Please don’t delude yourself that industrial tribunals are neutral courts designed to give redress to those who have been unfairly treated by their ruthless employers. Their primary purpose, like that of every other State institution, is to enforce the official cult of ‘diversity’ and to further the cause of aggressive secularism.

Justice doesn’t enter the equation. Dr Drew’s religious beliefs may not be everyone’s cup of meat, but he hasn’t killed anyone.

Up the road from Walsall, at Mid Staffs Hospital Trust, 1,200 NHS patients died because of a culture of neglect, incompetence and callous indifference. Not a single doctor or manager responsible has been sacked, arrested or jailed.

Yet Dr Drew, who has been caring for patients for 37 years, has been stripped of his career for sending a harmless prayer to his colleagues and standing up for his Christian beliefs.

Yesterday evening about 5.45, we were visited by two plain-clothes police officers. They had shown no ID when my wife opened the door, but she invited them into the lounge. In my study at the time (choosing the psalm & hymns for our church study and prayer meeting), Marian informed me that some police officers wished to see me. I thought, “Were they delivering a summons from the CPS?”

The two officers – one was very tall, the other of average height – stood as I entered the room. The tall officer then showed me his ID.

The purpose of their very brief visit was to announce that I am to face no charges regarding the Norwich Gay Pride complaint. When I said, “Do you mean the CPS do not intend to prosecute me?” they said that is so.

Rather taken aback by this unexpected and unannounced call, all I could say was, “That’s very kind of you, thank you.” The officer courteously added that there was a proviso, that I should send no further e-mails to Norwich Gay Pride. Otherwise, I could face charges of harassment. I replied, “I had no intention and saw no need to contact them. So there was no problem.”

Little more was said. The officers promptly departed. It was all rather vague and hasty. Nothing was delivered in writing, neither did I catch the names of the officers.

Going into the kitchen with the news, Marian – with an evident sense of relief – threw her arms around my neck saying “Praise the LORD!” For her sake and others who have been anxious for me since the first police interview of 17 August, I am thankful to God that this trying time is over. That said, I was looking forward to a day in court to bear witness against the sodomite wickedness growing in the UK. In that sense, I am somewhat disappointed! At least I can now continue my pastoral calling without the distraction of recent events.

To all those who have communicated their kind and prayerful support during this testing period, I send my warmest thanks. Please continue to pray for us, not least because if this local battle has ended, the war continues…

British commuter who told Pakistani to 'f*** off to your own country' in Tube outburst caught on camera is found NOT GUILTY

A commuter who told an Asian man to ‘f*** off back to your own country’ in a rant on a Tube train has been found not guilty of racial harassment .

Accountant Claire Moloney was allowed to sit with her family while the verdict was announced. A gasp of relief was heard when she was pronounced not guilty, and her husband put his arms around her and gave her a hug. One family member was heard to say, 'About time.'

Mrs Moloney said during her trial that she was embarrassed to watch film footage in which she screamed at an unidentified man, and which was later uploaded to YouTube, and shown to the court at her trial.

The jury at Snaresbrook Crown Court also decided she did not intend her words to cause harassment, alarm or distress.

In the video, Moloney told the commuter, an Asian-looking man: ‘I f****** respect people in their countries, f*** you c***.’ She stood up in her seat, saying: ‘You come in this country, you wanna have f*****g everything on a plate. F*** off back to your own country if your country is so good.’

Moloney, who works in Central London, was travelling to her home in Dagenham, Essex, on a District Line train after going for drinks with colleagues, the court heard.

When the alleged victim told her that she was being racist, she replied: ‘You c**** wanna take over our country, you racist c***, you wanna take over the world.’

The man remonstrated but was taken aback when Moloney got out of her seat to hurl more abuse. By the end of the video, the victim had given up arguing and told her, ‘OK, I’ll go back to my country.’

Moloney, 40, sobbed and fell in to the arms of her husband in the public gallery as the jury at Snaresbrook Crown Court read out their verdicts.

The mother-of-two denied she was racist, saying she was upset at being told she had 'blood on my hands' and being criticised because she had been drinking alcohol.

‘I’m not a racist in any shape or form,’ she told the court in her evidence. ‘I agree the language is horrific and I am mortified. ‘I was half asleep and he said something to do with my poppy and I wondered if it was about me. ‘He said something about blood on my hands for invading his country.

‘I know what he said was derogatory and against women in general and he definitely used the word “Slag” because I was out drinking. ‘I was insulted and I lost it and I ranted; I was arguing my case.’ ‘I was in a rage, I lost control and I was ranting but he was goading me.’

It was suggested to Moloney that the man was at a ‘point of surrender’ but she said: ‘I do not think so. He was being sarcastic.’

Under cross-examination she claimed to regret not attempting to leave the train or reporting the abuse.

However, she did say she would have reacted had anybody of any race made comments like the ones the unidentified Asian man had made.

Moloney left court having pleaded not guilty to one count of using racially aggravated words to cause harassment, alarm or distress and one count of intentionally using words to cause harassment, alarm or distress.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of other countries. The only real difference, however, is how much power they have. In America, their power is limited by democracy. To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges. They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did: None. So look to the colleges to see what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way. It would be a dictatorship.

Friday, September 27, 2013

Why are liberals in so much denial about liberal bias in the news? Why do they think they're bending over backward to be "objective" doing that which Republicans see as partisan activism?

Daniel Froomkin of the Huffington Post — formerly of The Washington Post — suggests an answer. He is exactly the kind of liberal agitator in the newsroom who wants every news story to be a blazing editorial. Every reporter must divide the world clearly between Liberal Sense and Conservative Nonsense. His latest article is titled, "Writing a Neutral Story About Something So Heartless As the Food Stamp Vote Is Not Good Journalism."

On Sept. 19, The New York Times reported, "The Republican-led House yesterday voted to make deep cuts to the food stamps program that has kept millions of American families from going hungry since the recession hit, saying its response to growing need was instead a sign of bloat and abuse."

Froomkin argued that attempting objectivity, like quoting awful Republicans, creates horrendous "triangulating mush" that fails to educate voters. The Republican food-stamp vote was for him "a blatantly absurd and cruel move (that) struck me as a good test of whether the Washington press corps could ever bring itself to call things as they so obviously are — or whether they would check their very good brains at the door and just write triangulating mush that leaves readers to fend for themselves."

Republicans should complain that while the Times story contained spending numbers and quoted both Democrats and Republicans, it contained the usual liberal media bias — indeed, editorial slant — in favor of social programs growing by leaps and bounds, forever and ever. But Froomkin was livid at the Times. "Like those at essentially every other mainstream news organization, they wrote it straight. They focused on procedure. They quoted both sides. And they called it a day."

Froomkin characterized Republicans quoted in the Times as either "fabulously disingenuous" or "shockingly dishonest." Froomkin would prefer these fools to be banned entirely from the news pages, unless they were tarred and feathered in print as unhinged extremists. Only that socialist view is the "truth."

Rep. Marlin Stutzman was "fabulously disingenuous" to insist that anti-poverty programs be measured by lifting people out of poverty, not just increasing spending in an era of trillion-dollar deficits. Somehow, he's the irrational one.

But when Republicans talk of dramatic spending increases in a news story, Froomkin faults reporters. He claimed it contrasts "a nonsensical non-argument with a fact and makes it sound like two equal sides." The Democratic "fact" was that the dramatic increase showed "the program was doing its job."

Froomkin is such a censorious Pravda-style writer that he even faulted his own colleagues at The Huffington Post for allowing "a long and utterly disingenuous quote from [Eric] Cantor, left unrebutted."

These are the facts Froomkin thinks are "disingenuous." Since taking office, the Obama administration has more than doubled spending on food stamps. Spending rose from $39 billion in 2008 to a projected $85 billion in 2012. House Republicans just voted to cut $40 billion from food stamps over a 10-year span, which, in federal-budget terms, is a tiny blip, not a "deep cut." The Times story admitted that even with these "cuts," the food stamp program "would cost more than $700 billion over the next 10 years."

The Times also noted that Senate Democrats insisted there would be no "cuts."

President Obama is responsible for a record number of food stamp recipients (47.7 million in June 2013). That's 6 million more Americans than when Obama's "recovery summer" began in June 2010.

Froomkin thought the newspaper accounts should agree with his view that the House vote was "not only an undeniable act of heartlessness, it was also perhaps the ultimate example of how today's increasingly radical and unhinged GOP leadership picks on the poor, coddles the rich, makes thinly veiled appeals to racism and plays time-wasting political games instead of governing."

Froomkin saw some merit in The Washington Post vote on this story, since it suggested conservative racism in pointing out the Census Bureau reports that almost half the food-stamp recipients are black or Hispanic.

"People at the Post are smart enough to realize that the primary political benefit to the GOP of attacking food stamps — and blaming Obama for the increase in their use — is that it serves as a dog-whistle, affirming to the base that Republican leaders are against letting shiftless minorities keep taking money out of your (white) pockets. People at the Post are not brave enough to say so, however."

After listening to their Froomkin-esque friends, liberal reporters think they've been painfully objective and dreadfully tolerant of Republican viewpoints. That's one reason the waterfall of liberal bias never stops flowing.

INTRIGUED BY news coverage of Pope Francis's interview with the world's leading Jesuit journals, I wanted to read the whole thing for myself. The full English text, downloaded from the website of the New York-based America magazine, was 19 pages long. The part that generated all the excited headlines — "Pope Says Church Is 'Obsessed' With Gays, Abortion and Birth Control" was how The New York Times announced it on page 1 — amounted to only about five paragraphs. Maybe the Catholic Church isn't the institution that's obsessed.

You wouldn't know it from the media's compulsive focus on the controversial social issues, but the long conversation with the new pope was far more interesting and wide-ranging than a mere skull session on culture-war politics. The pope discussed everything from his favorite paintings to his daily prayers, from how he taught literature to high school boys to how he learned to avoid being authoritarian as he rose in the church hierarchy. He explained why leaving "room for doubt" is so important in any honest person's search for God, and why he distrusts any religious figure who claims to have "the answers to all the questions."

Neither Francis nor his interviewer dwelt at any length on the hot-button subjects that so fascinate the news media. They came up only once. The pope was asked how pastors could best reach "Christians who live in situations that are irregular for the church or … that represent open wounds." He answered, in effect: Meet them where they are, and work from there.

Just as God accompanies people in life, the pope said, so "we must accompany them, starting from their situation." That doesn't mean the church should drop its opposition to abortion or gay marriage: "The teaching of the church … is clear and I am a son of the church." But if the church's goal is to win over hearts and minds — especially in the midst of an aggressive secular culture that celebrates abortion rights and gay marriage — "it is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time." Don't lose sight of the big picture, the pope advises. He analogized the church to a field hospital, and reminded Catholics of the importance of triage when assisting a seriously injured person. You don't start by hectoring him about cholesterol. First things first. "You have to heal his wounds. Then we can talk about everything else."

From the first moments of his papacy it has been evident that Francis is a "people" person, with a gentle common touch and a gift for pastoral outreach. In the church as in any other organization, leadership comes in very different styles. This pope's style is a warm, encouraging one. With more than 40 years of experience in the priesthood, he knows what has worked for him and has had plenty of time to judge the success of other approaches. It would be surprising indeed if he didn't use the immensely extended influence that comes with being supreme pontiff to adjust or renew the church's course.

On the other hand, nothing is surprising about the eagerness with which so many on the cultural left have seized on a few lines in an extended interview and hailed it as a game-changer. One abortion-rights lobby took to Facebook to post — of all things! — a giant "Thank You" card to the pope. A prominent gay-marriage advocate exulted over what he sees as "The Rebirth of Catholicism."

But the pope isn't throwing out the Catechism. He isn't changing church doctrine. He isn't telling priests and bishops to "move on" from the politics swirling about abortion or same-sex marriage. Far from it. He is simply reminding them that a good teacher needs a good attitude, and that a shepherd seeking to bring lost lambs back to the fold may sometimes need to hike a great distance, and draw on reservoirs of great patience, before the strays are willing to return. "The people of God want pastors, not clergy acting like bureaucrats or government officials," the pope says.

We live in an era when so much of our public culture really is "obsessed" with sexual issues, and full of anger and contempt for those who maintain the guard rails of tradition and morality. Francis doesn't propose to let those guard rails rust. But his intuition and experience tell him they can be kept in better trim with less acrimony. I'm not a Catholic, but I pray for his success.

UK: Christian doctor sacked for emailing a prayer to colleagues to cheer them up loses appeal against dismissal

A Christian doctor who was sacked because he emailed a prayer to his colleagues has claimed hospital managers targeted him as an NHS whistleblower after he lost an appeal against his dismissal.

Consultant paediatrician Dr David Drew, 65, sent a 16th-century prayer by St Ignatius Loyola around his department in April 2009, hoping it would be motivational.

Dr Drew, who had an unblemished 37-year career in the NHS, was told to ‘keep his religious beliefs to himself’ by a review panel, which was called to investigate his conduct in March 2010.

After refusing to accept their findings, he was sacked from Walsall Manor Hospital, where he worked as a clinical director.

Today the father-of-four, who lives in Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands, with his wife Janet, 63, said the email had been used as a smokescreen to push him out of his post. He said: 'My case was never about the religion, it was about the fact the hospital wouldn’t listen to its most senior paediatrician telling them they were cutting costs to the bone and putting patient safety at risk.

'It’s all about whistleblowing. We’ve now got people like Robert Francis [Robert Francis QC, who chaired the public inquiry into the Stafford hospital deaths] telling us doctors and nurses are too scared to raise concerns because it’s considered a career-ending move.

'There were five gags put on my case so we’ve never been able to interrogate the process used in the review which led to my dismissal. 'My case is the exact opposite of the transparency that’s being called for in the NHS today.

'We have to give doctors and nurses freedom to safely report when they see things going wrong and putting patients at risk. It’s a scandal.'

The doctor was branded as having committed ‘gross misconduct and insubordination’ in December 2010.

An employment tribunal in April last year rejected his claims of unfair dismissal, religious discrimination and victimisation against Walsall Hospitals NHS Trust.

And on Monday this week a judge upheld the decision of the lower court after he deemed its findings were based on available evidence.

Judge Jeffrey Burke QC said the original panel had not made any error in law and rejected claims from Dr Drew’s legal team that their conclusions were ‘perverse’.

Dr Drew prefaced the prayer that he sent around the department, called ‘To give and not to count the cost’, with the words: 'I find this a personal inspiration in my frail imperfect efforts to serve my patients, their families and our department.'

Managers declared he had created a ‘toxic work environment’ with what were inappropriate religious communications.

Dr Drew said today: 'It was the management that raised a complaint against me after they found an email I’d sent to my colleagues with this traditional, literary prayer in it.

'They gave me instructions I was to keep my religion out of the workplace.

'We were a very very happy department with people of different faiths and even some atheists who were quite outspoken.

'But we were senior, intelligent, well-educated people who were not extreme in our beliefs in any way. We co-existed quite happily.'

Dr Drew was suspended in the same month after a senior nurse claimed he had undermined her, but the allegation was later proved unfounded.

Dr Drew was meeting with his legal team yesterday to discuss the case. He plans to release a book about his case in November.

A spokesperson from Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust said that the issues that Dr Drew raised today had been addressed through several stringent formal processes on-going since 2009.

The spokesperson said the Trust was satisfied with the outcome of the case and that Dr Drew's claims had been dismissed, but added: 'We would like to reiterate that this case did not question Dr Drew’s skills as a Paediatric Consultant and on behalf of the Trust would like to say that we regret that the situation had to get to the Tribunal stage.

'As a Trust we actively encourage and support our staff to raise an issue if they are concerned about patient care.'

The European Commission immediately threatened sanctions against France for its policy towards the Roma community. A spokesman insisted everyone from Bulgaria and Rumania was a citizen of the EU and therefore had a right to travel anywhere.

Three years ago the Commission’s vice president, Viviane Reding, sent a similar threat to former president Nicolas Sarkozy, saying that Roma expulsions had to stop.

The row will be of huge interest in the UK, as next year restrictions on Romanians and Bulgarians looking for work are being swept away.

In an interview on the France Inter radio station, Mr Valls said: ‘The Roma should return to Romania or Bulgaria.’ The Socialist Party member added: ‘Yes, we must tell the truth to the French – these populations have a way of life that is extremely different to ours, and they are obviously in confrontation with local populations.’

Illegal Roma camps have sprung up on the edges of major cities such as Paris and Marseille. All have become associated with widespread crime and major health hazards.

Mr Valls, who was born in Barcelona, said: ‘It is unrealistic to think we will solve the problem of Roma populations only through integration.’ He said there is ‘no alternative but to dismantle these camps and gradually move them across the border’.

And last night he remained defiant in the face of criticism, insisting: ‘The majority [of Roma] should be delivered back to the borders. We are not here to welcome these people.

‘I’d remind you of [former Socialist premier] Michel Rocard’s statement “it’s not France’s job to deal with the misery of the whole world”.’ One of Mr Valls’s own cabinet colleagues, Arnaud Montebourg, also pointed to the fact the minister’s family were migrants from Spain.

Mr Montebourg said: ‘A theory that such and such a person or such and such a people will never, ever be able to integrate just doesn’t stand up. ‘Decreeing in advance that it is impossible seems to me excessive and is worthy of being corrected.’

But Mr Valls said: ‘I’ve got nothing to correct. My remarks only shock those who don’t know the subject.’

Referring to the Schengen agreement which allows people to move across Europe without passport checks, Mr Cope said both Romania and Bulgaria should be excluded.

‘We close our eyes to the French government to what is happening in our country – the constant violence’, he said. ‘This is extremely serious and…it is out of the question that Bulgaria and Romania enter the Schengen area until the problem is resolved at the European level.’

There are an estimated 15,000 Roma gipsies in France. Two years ago the then interior minister, Claude Gueant, claimed the vast majority of street robberies in Paris were carried out by Romanian immigrants.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of other countries. The only real difference, however, is how much power they have. In America, their power is limited by democracy. To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges. They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did: None. So look to the colleges to see what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way. It would be a dictatorship.

Thursday, September 26, 2013

Christian convictions not allowed on Fox Sport?

Attorneys representing former NFL running back and former Republican senatorial candidate Craig James said Tuesday they are prepared to proceed with legal action against Fox Sports unless the company takes steps to return James to the air as a college football analyst on Fox Sports Southwest.

Liberty Institute, a Plano law firm that specializes in religious freedom cases, said in a three-page letter sent Tuesday to Fox Sports officials that the network committed "a severe violation of Mr. James' religious liberty" by hiring and then dismissing him as college football studio analyst based on lifestyle-related comments made during his 2012 campaign for a U.S. Senate seat.

"Fox Sports has an opportunity here to resolve this in a friendly way and get this behind everybody, and we are hopeful that is what is going to happen" said Hiram Sasser, an attorney with Liberty Institute, whose letterhead reads "Restoring Religious Liberty in America." "We are not interested in the blame game. We're interested in resolving the issue and getting Craig back on the air."

James, who worked for ESPN, ABC and CBS as a sportscaster following his football-playing days at Houston Stratford, SMU and the New England Patriots, was hired in August to appear on Fox Sports Southwest's college football studio shows. It was his first broadcasting job since he left ESPN to make an unsuccessful bid in the Republican Primary for the Senate seat now held by Ted Cruz.

During a candidates' debate during his Senate campaign, James was asked "Do you think people choose to be gay?" and replied, "I think it's a choice, I do. . I think that you have to make that choice. But in that case right there, they are going to have to answer to the Lord for their actions. We should not give benefits to those civil unions."

His campaign website included the statement: " I believe marriage is between one man and one woman, as ordained by God. I do not support the legalization of gay marriage."

He appeared on the network's Aug. 31 shows, but Fox Sports officials announced the following Monday that he would no longer be appearing on Fox Sports Southwest and that his hire by Jon Heidtke, the general manager of the Irving-based regional sports network, had not been fully vetted by company officials.

A company spokesman told The Dallas Morning News: "We just asked ourselves how Craig's statements would play in our human resources department. He couldn't say those things here."

James has not returned several messages seeking comment since his removal from the air but said in a statement issued Tuesday to Breitbart News that he believes his dismissal stemmed from comments that he says are consistent with his religious faith.

"I was shocked that my personal religious beliefs were not only the reason for Fox Sports firing me but I was completely floored when I read stories quoting Fox Sports representatives essentially saying that people of faith are banned from working at Fox Sports," he said. "That is not right and surely someone made a terrible mistake.

"I have worked in broadcasting for 24 years and have always treated my colleagues with respect and dignity regardless of their background or personal beliefs. I believe it is essential in our business to maintain professional relationships with people from a diverse background and have tolerance for those of different beliefs. I have never discussed my faith while broadcasting and it has never been an issue until now."

In its three-page letter addressed to Heidtke and Mike Anastassioiu, FSSW's executive producer, and to Fox Sports Media Group executives Eric Shanks and Randy Freer, Liberty Institute general counsel Jeffrey Mateer said he would begin legal proceedings within 48 hours of the letter's transmission Tuesday unless James is rehired.

"If you refuse to reinstate Mr. James, millions of Americans will be left with the impression that you do not respect religious liberty," he wrote.

Mateer said the firm's first step would be to obtain documents and seek depositions from Fox Sports officials under provisions of the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure.

The cultural relativists on the Left and apologists for radical Islam like to blame the Crusades for almost everything. The Muslim extremists are only responding to the deeds of Christian extremists, the argument goes. In his new book, Sir Walter Scott's Crusades and Other Fantasies, former Muslim Ibn Warraq takes on this misleading theme intended to blame the West for the Muslim world's troubles.

The claim that the Crusades are the starting point of Islamic jihad is basically the political application of, "For every action, there is an equal but opposite reaction." It equates the Christian beliefs driving the Crusades with the Islamic beliefs driving jihad.

Ibn Warraq's new book tackles this misconception. Islamic atrocities were not provoked by the Crusaders' own reprehensible acts, but preceded them. Islamic jihad was not triggered by the Crusades; it preceded them.

In fact, as explained by Warraq and in books like The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and What's So Great About Christianity, the Christian world was reduced to about one-third of what it was by the sword of jihad. The Crusades were launched with the objective of, without any exaggeration, saving Europe and Western civilization from Sharia.

My personal experience in school is that the opposite was taught. The Crusades were framed as offensive and the jihads as defensive. The Crusaders were depicted as barbarians, particularly to Jews. I cannot recall hearing about a single Islamic atrocity before or during these wars.

This is a common phenomenon, Warraq explains, and it's part of an overall trend when it comes to education about the history of Islam.

"What are seen as positive aspects of Islamic Civilization are ecstatically praised, even exaggerated, and all the negative aspects are imputed to the arrival of the pestilential Westerners, and where the Arabs, Persians and Muslims in general are seen as passive victims," Warraq said in an interview.

As proof, Warraq and the other authors mention the countless mass killings and persecutions of Christians and Jews before the Crusades. The destruction of over 30,000 churches during a 10-year period starting in 1004 AD is little-known. So is the burning of crosses, the beheading of converts to Christianity from Islam, the destruction of Christian holy sites like the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the forced tax for non-Muslims (the jizya) and the list goes on and on.

Modern-day Islamists and their apologists point to these times as proof of the historical tolerance of Islamic civilization. Islam-ruled Spain (Andalucia) and the city of Cordoba are held up as the golden examples of interfaith coexistence. For example, the Islamic Society of North America's official publication included an article in its March-April issue titled, "Andalucia: Paradise Still Lost?"

One of the most interesting claims made in Waraq's book is that the Crusades did not have a permanent impact on the Muslim psychology. Part of the reason is because the Muslim world viewed the wars as an overall victory.

"Many believe that modern Muslims have inherited from their medieval ancestors memories of crusader violence and destruction. But nothing could be further from the truth. By the fourteenth century, in the Islamic world the Crusades had almost passed out of mind," Warraq said.

This begs the question of what revived the relevancy of the Crusades in how the Muslim world views the West.

Warraq says that the Crusades were reentered into the discourse by Europe. Imperialism was purposely framed as a continuation of the Crusades; something particularly agitating for the growing Arab nationalist movement.

"Nineteenth, and even early twentieth century Europeans unashamedly used crusader rhetoric and a tendentious reading of crusader history to justify their imperial dreams of conquest," according to Warraq.

The Arab world's insecurities over its falling behind were blamed on the European colonists that were viewed as Crusaders. This theme "eases the guilty consciences of the Arabs themselves: it is not their fault that they are such abject failures-it is all the fault of the Crusaders."

In addition, attributing the backwardness of the Muslim world to the "Crusaders" allowed Sharia Law to escape responsibility. At the same time, complaining about the Crusades actually provided Muslims with hope in the face of Western superiority.

As Dinesh D'Souza explains, "So the Crusades can be seen as a belated, clumsy and unsuccessful effort to defeat Islamic imperialism."

However, Warraq emphasizes that his point isn't to blame the West for its use of Crusader rhetoric. The jihad existed before the Crusades and during the period when they "had almost passed out of mind" of the Muslim world.

"My point is that Islamic jihad did not end with the defeat of the Crusaders. On the contrary, in Islamic doctrine all the later Islamic conquests were seen as a part of the religious duty of carrying out jihad until the entire world submits to Islam," he said.

Blaming the Crusades is a way of denying the Islamic supremacist ideology that has driven the conflict from the beginning.

The clear-eyed Palestinian journalist Khaled abu Toameh points out that, if the Palestinian Authority wants the world to take it seriously as a `partner for peace' with Israel, it is going a mighty strange way about showing it.

In separate incidents in the past few days two Israeli soldiers were murdered in the West Bank - one of them having been lured there from Tel Aviv to his death - with the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade claiming responsibility.

The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade is the armed wing of Fatah. Fatah is the party of Mahmoud Abbas, head of the Palestinian Authority, who does not distance himself from such atrocities committed by his own armed wing.

The PA has also been involved in `a massive campaign of incitement' against Israel, with some officials calling for an escalation of `popular resistance' and with others disseminating inflammatory lies about Israeli behaviour - creating the kind of toxic atmosphere which fuels attacks such as the killing of the two Israeli soldiers.

The Palestinian Authority is deemed by Britain, the US and the EU to be a `moderate' body with which Israel must negotiate an agreement for a Palestinian state.

How can the PA possibly be moderate when it openly and routinely supports murder and promotes incitement to hatred and violence against Israel?

The answer, of course, as I have been saying here for years, is that Mahmoud Abbas and the PA are not `moderate' by any reasonable definition of that word; nor are they interested in peaceful co-existence with Israel at all.

More tellingly, they do not feel they have to convince the world that they are. And that is because they know that, whatever atrocities are carried out by their own people, whatever incitement they promulgate and whatever bad faith they show in a myriad different ways, they can rely on Britain, the US and EU to ignore it all and pretend that Abbas and co are indeed seriously interested in a settlement - and then blame Israel for the inevitable breakdown in the peace process.

So how can Britain, the US and the EU possibly subscribe to such a wicked travesty?

Because they have convinced themselves that, when terrorist godfathers in suits and ties tell them what they want to hear, that is because those terrorist godfathers really want nothing more than to become statesmen, turn their swords into ploughshares and build a peaceful and unthreatening society with those they have sworn to wipe out.

How can Britain, the US and the EU possibly be so deluded? Because they think there is no alternative if there is ever to be peace between Israel and the Arabs.

Why do they subscribe to such a muddled non-sequitur? Because they don't want to face two demonstrable facts.

What are those facts?

The first is that the Arab-Israel nine decade-plus war is not a boundary dispute about the division of land. It is a war of extermination by Arab aggressors against the internationally-agreed right of the Jews to govern themselves in their own historic homeland.

The second fact is far more devastating. The single most important reason why this Arab-Israel war continues apparently without end is that, from the very start, first the British and then the Americans and the EU have rewarded Palestinian Arab aggression and punished its Jewish victims or pushed them to surrender. Not surprisingly, the Palestinians have therefore been encouraged to continue to attack Israelis with impunity, to this very day.

And so the devastating fact that Britain, the US and the EU refuse to acknowledge is that the main reason the Arab-Israel war continues is not the intransigence of Benjamin Netanyahu, nor the behaviour of the Israeli `settlers', nor the absence of a Palestinian state. It is nothing other than the behaviour of Britain, the US and the EU themselves.

Because of her longstanding support for abortion, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), a Catholic, must be denied Communion under the law of the Catholic Church, said Cardinal Raymond Burke, head of the highest court at the Vatican.Cardinal Burke referenced his remarks about Pelosi to Canon Law--the law governing the Catholic Church--and specifically Canon 915, which says those Catholics who obstinately persevere "in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to Holy Communion."

"Certainly this is a case when Canon 915 must be applied," said Cardinal Burke in an interview reprinted on Sept. 5 in The Wanderer, a national Catholic weekly. "This is a person who obstinately, after repeated admonitions, persists in a grave sin--cooperating with the crime of procured abortion--and still professes to be a devout Catholic."

"This is a prime example of what Blessed John Paul II referred to as the situation of Catholics who have divorced their faith from their public life and therefore are not serving their brothers and sisters in the way that they must--in safeguarding and promoting the life of the innocent and defenseless unborn, in safeguarding and promoting the integrity of marriage and the family," said the cardinal.

In mid-June at a Capitol Hill press conference, Pelosi was asked if there is a moral difference between aborting a baby at 26 weeks and what Dr. Kermit Gosnell did in Philadelphia in delivering babies alive at 23 weeks and then severing their spinal cords to kill them?Pelosi did not answer the question directly but said, "As a practicing and respectful Catholic, this is sacred ground to me when we talk about this. I don't think it should have anything to do with politics, and that's where you're taking it and I'm not going there."

It was in reference to that quote that Cardinal Burke was asked, "How are we to react to such a seemingly scandalous statement? Is this a case where Canon 915 might properly be applied?" Burke replied: "Certainly this is a case when Canon 915 must be applied."

The cardinal went on to say: "What Congresswoman Pelosi is speaking of is not particular confessional beliefs or practices of the Catholic Church. It belongs to the natural moral law which is written on every human heart and which the Catholic Church obviously also teaches: that natural moral law which is so wonderfully illumined for us by Our Lord Jesus Christ by His saving teaching, but most of all by His Passion and death."

"To say that these are simply questions of Catholic faith which have no part in politics is just false and wrong," said Card. Burke. "I fear for Congresswoman Pelosi if she does not come to understand how gravely in error she is. I invite her to reflect upon the example of St. Thomas More who acted rightly in a similar situation even at the cost of his life."St. Thomas More (1478-1535) was Lord Chancellor of England under King Henry VIII. When Henry VIII broke with Rome and declared himself head of the church in England, More refused to swear allegiance to the king's Oath of Supremacy. As a result, Henry VIII had More beheaded. More's last words were, "The king's good servant, but God's first."

Pelosi has a long history of supporting abortion and and has a 100% rating by NARAL Pro-Choice America.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church says, "Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law."

The Catechism further says: "From its conception, the child has the right to life. Direct abortion, that is, abortion willed as an end or as a means, is a `criminal' practice (GS 27 3), gravely contrary to the moral law. The Church imposes the canonical penalty of excommunication for this crime against human life."

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of other countries. The only real difference, however, is how much power they have. In America, their power is limited by democracy. To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges. They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did: None. So look to the colleges to see what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way. It would be a dictatorship.

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Here's how the BBC describes the terrorists who have slaughtered at last 69 people in the Westgate mall in Nairobi:

Now, we don't expect the Beeb to describe the al-Shabab killers as "animals" in a news report. That was the word used, perfectly appropriately, by Louis Bowa, who is waiting for the bodies of his wife and eight-year-old daughter to be recovered from the shopping mall. It's a metaphor and would look strange in a piece of reporting. The right word is "terrorists". For example:

"British businessman condemns terrorists who murdered his daughter" … which is a Telegraph headline. And, from the body of one of our reports: "As the terrorists roamed the mall with guns and grenades…"

Let's get this straight. There is nothing wrong with using the term "militants" to describe the al-Shabab gunmen. But they are terrorists, by any criterion, and that word should also be used.

The Beeb won't do it, however. It virtually bans the word from reporting, lest it be used "inappropriately". Many BBC journalists, who are overwhelmingly on the Left, support the causes for which armed gunmen fight in, say, Palestine. Therefore there's no question of describing Hamas as a terrorist organisation. This I can just about understand, given that Hamas is also a powerful political party, though I don't agree with the policy.

But in what universe are Islamists who spray women and children with bullets in a shopping centre not terrorists? The BBC may say: we have a rule and we have to apply it universally. This is nonsense. That's what editors are for.

But hang on. On re-reading a BBC report, I see that it does use the T-word: "Kenyan officials said earlier that three "terrorists" had been killed, and that 10 people had been arrested."

Those inverted commas are more contemptible than not using the word at all. And remember: Britons pay for this.

Traipsing through Dulles Airport the other day, my eyes were drawn to a series of wall poster advertisements. Each one featured a supposed “foreign aid success story”—a smiling man or woman under a very familiar phrase: “Fiscal Hawk,” “Beltway Outsider,” “Job Creator.” The fourth one, “Venture Capitalist,” broke the proverbial camel’s back for me.

What struck me was not that the message was aimed at a Beltway political audience. I have long grown accustomed to bus and street billboards advocating certain weapons systems, federal health care open enrollment or software to improve government services. Created by Oxfam America, the ads at Dulles were clearly promoting the continuation of current U.S. foreign aid policies.

Let’s leave the foreign aid battle for another day. For now, let us focus on the use of phrases and concepts that come straight from the free enterprise playbook—fiscal hawk, job creator, and venture capitalist—clearly appropriated to promote increased government spending and intervention.

Maybe we should be pleased. Maybe there is an argument to be made that the Left’s adoption of market language amounts to an implicit recognition our free market ideas resonate with the public. They resonate, we might add, because they are innate concepts—natural rights and all that.

Oxfam isn’t the only organization to make smart, selective use of free market language to advance a big government agenda. Fuels America, a coalition of agribusiness firms and biofuel advocacy groups, is currently running ads that declare, in big block letters, “There Is a Choice.” The fine print calls for maintaining the federal renewable fuel standard, which mandates the level of renewable fuel blended into transportation fuel and so decidedly diminishes consumer choice. But why let facts get in the way of good marketing?

Legislation is often named in ways that mislead the public. Take the Marketplace Fairness Act, a bill that would allow states to collect sales taxes from out-of-state businesses. Think the Founders would have something to say about “taxation without representation” being passed off as “marketplace fairness?” Then there’s the “Dairy Freedom Act,” which provides federal insurance for participating dairy producers. Does freedom still mean what I think it means?

The marketing of cap-and-trade proposals provides a great example of Orwellian wordsmithing. Proponents call the scheme a “market-based” approach to reducing emissions, but cap-and-trade is actually a cap-and-tax system. Dressing up the proposal in the language of “trade” and “economic incentives” may fool some, but it doesn’t make it any less of a tax.

Then there’s Obamacare. “Health Insurances Exchange” has a nice market-friendly ring to it. “Exchange” sounds less like socialized medicine than a big flea market! But that doesn’t change what it is. The coverage mandates and fines … er, taxes … for non-participation are still there.

Politicians’ populist, superficial use of market rhetoric is a bittersweet thing. On one hand, it reaffirms the American people value capitalism, choice and smart spending. On the other, it disguises statist policies as market solutions.

To make things worse, politicians and pundits on the Right not only have allowed this casual dilution of market language, they’ve actively participated in it. Think about how often Republican lawmakers casually drop free enterprise buzzwords when shilling for restrictive copyright legislation, burdensome immigration rules, wasteful agriculture subsidies (or almost any subsidy, for that matter), or the latest infrastructure boondoggle.

Washington, D.C., is full of smart people who know how to bend and stretch the meanings of words until they have little relation to their original definitions. It’s a city of politicians and public relations wizards, where misleading is elevated to an art. But that’s no excuse to fold our arms and simply watch the merry-go-round, convinced we can’t stop it.

Language matters in the war of ideas. If the Left and Right are going to have real debates about the issues that matter—issues such as energy, finance, and immigration—we should stop using the same words to mean different things. We should stop conflating “capitalism” with “cronyism.” We should acknowledge closing factories in the name of clean energy does not “create jobs.” We also should acknowledge that easing immigration restrictions will not “destroy jobs.”

Vigilance is required to sift the rhetorical wheat from the chaff. Certainly, not every free market approach is equal, but we need to expose those that were never free market to begin with—except in name.

Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) urged Deborah Lee James, President Obama’s nominee for Secretary of the Air Force, to look into specific cases in which the military allegedly suppressed service members’ religious rights before she is confirmed by the U.S. Senate. "We're going to give you about 42 specific examples as a followup," Vitter told her.

“A lot of us are very concerned about what in our opinion is political correctness run amok on steroids quashing legitimate exercise and expression of religion in the military, things like… telling somebody they can’t have a Bible on their desk - that’s a documented case. Telling a Christian chaplain he can’t end a prayer in Jesus’ name – that’s a documented case,” Vitter told James at her nomination hearing Thursday.

“Do you think these sort of issues are a problem and if so, what would you do about it?” the Louisiana Republican asked.

“I have actually read the policy of the Department of Defense and I know what that policy says,” James replied. "It says that the open ability to worship, there shall be freedom of all religions so long as within good order and discipline. And I know that the chaplains, the whole point that they put forth, is that there shall be dignity and respect for everyone, of course.”

Noting that she was not familiar with the particular cases Vitter referred to, James added, “Of course, it’s a question of if you have a policy, the policy seems good to me, but then you have some people who don’t follow the policy, so these individual cases we’ll have to look into.”

Vitter persisted. “Do you think those actions should be barred in the military?”

“So having a Bible on your desk, that doesn’t seem like it should be barred to me, no,” James said.

“And a Christian chaplain ending a prayer in Christ’s name?” he asked.

“It does not seem bad to me, and I’ll have to, if you’ll allow me to consult with the chaplaincy corps to find out some reason I’m not thinking about, but no, it certainly does not trouble me,” James replied.

“Religious freedom is one of the core principles that make our nation great,” Vitter said later in a press release. “Unfortunately there are far too many cases of the military restricting the men and women who serve our country from expressing their faith. That’s just not right, and I want to make sure the Air Force Secretary nominee does everything she can to fix it.”

Vitter referred to a recent report by the Family Research Council (FRC) criticizing the military's “opposition to conservative Christian beliefs, reportedly including banning Bibles, labeling evangelicals and Catholics extremists, and trying to force a soldier to endorse gay marriage.” (See A Clear and Present Danger.pdf)

However, committee chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich) said during Thursday’s hearing that “in terms of the reference to prayer, depending on where a prayer is made, if it’s made to a general audience, it could be a different responsibility for a chaplain than if it’s made to an audience of his own religion.

“This is a very sensitive area, because we want to protect freedom of religion for chaplains and for our troops, but we also want to protect the freedom of religion for people who are listening to chaplains,” Levin continued. “And so it’s a very serious subject which has been raised and it’s deserving of all of our attention.”

Levin referred to an alleged incident reported by Ron Crews, executive director of the Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty, who told CNSNews.com in July that a 23-year veteran Air Force officer was told by his superior, “You cannot put your Bible on your desk because it may offend someone.”

Levin also asked James to look into the incident “and see what action was taken to correct it, because we’ve had difficulty confirming it.”

James agreed to report her findings to the full committee, adding that “the idea of dignity and respect for all religions, to include those who have no religion at all – it’s all equally important.”

Back to the future with Marxist Miliband: If Britain falls for Ed's socialist farce, it really will be a tragedy

By Richard Littlejohn

So now we know Ed Miliband’s master plan. He wants to bring back socialism. No great surprise there, then.

Miliband’s late father was one of Britain’s most prominent Marxist ‘intellectuals’. In other words, he was spectacularly wrong on every single major issue.

My old man’s a Marxist,He wears a Marxist’s hat,He wears old corduroy trousers,And he lives in a £2 million flat.(In Primrose Hill).

Pity Ralph Miliband isn’t still alive. I’d have loved to hear his views on Labour’s proposed ‘mansion tax’. But clearly some of his discredited ideas have rubbed off on his youngest son.

Whatever’s wrong with modern Britain, the solution isn’t socialism. We tried that and look where it got us.

I’m not talking about the blood-soaked socialism which led to gulags and genocide in Eastern Europe and China. Or the sociopathic socialism which has turned North Korea into a Mad Hatter’s prison camp.

Let’s consider the particularly British brand of socialism, which still has plenty of devoted disciples in the Labour Party, including its weird leader.

The idea that the State could and would provide has been tested to destruction. Rampant socialism turned post-war Britain into a bankrupt basket case.

Nationalisation robbed industry of the incentive to modernise. For decades, Britain turned its back on the free market economics which once made us the richest nation on earth.

Unions exercised a stranglehold on the means of production and distribution. In the name of the ‘workers’, stroppy shop stewards called strikes at the drop of a hat.

Most of the union leaders on parade in Brighton this week salivate at the prospect of turning the clock back to that era of debilitating, daily disruption.

When I was covering British Leyland in the 1970s, there was a grand total of 27 separate strikes across the company on a single day. When the toolmakers went back to work, the delivery drivers walked out. At Longbridge, workers on the night-shift were literally sleeping on the job.

Billions of pounds of public money was poured into subsiding products no one wanted to buy.

I’ve written before about the taxpayer-funded excesses at British Steel. On the day the corporation’s chairman, Mr Pastry-lookalike Sir Charles Villiers, announced a record £1 billion loss, he threw open the doors to the executive dining room and invited Fleet Street’s finest to join him in a sumptuous feast from an all-you-can-eat buffet, groaning with suckling pigs, whole salmon, roast sirloins of beef and vintage claret.

Still, what’s a couple of grand on a jolly-up when the taxpayers are already lumbered with a billion-pound tab?

And what was the upshot of all this largesse at the public’s expense? British Steel and British Leyland both went bust because they couldn’t withstand the chill winds of foreign competition.

Back then, it took six months to get the Post Office to install a telephone in your home. Try telling that to a generation who upgrade their mobiles every five minutes.

If you wanted a cooker, you could buy one only from the nationalised electricity or gas boards and then wait obediently until they could be bothered to hook it up.

Council tenants couldn’t even paint their front doors without permission in triplicate from a gauleiter at the local authority.

Had Labour won the 1979 election, inefficient, loss-making coal mines would still be open and Arthur Scargill would be sitting in the House of Lords. At least we might have been spared all those hideous wind farms cluttering up the countryside.

Commuters moan about the private rail companies, but if the railways had remained nationalised they’d still be running filthy, dilapidated rolling stock and Bob Crow’s RMT union would be on strike most of the time.

Old Labour presided over a siege economy. At one stage, you weren’t allowed take more than £50 out of the country when you went on holiday. The top rate of tax was 97 per cent, the standard rate 35 per cent. Someone had to pay for all this glorious socialism.

Mrs Thatcher changed all that. The 1997 New Labour government was forced to accept her settlement. But the Left resented Thatcher with a toxic hatred, which came bubbling to the surface when she died.

The hardline socialists didn’t disappear, however. They simply mutated into local government and the institutions.

Those organisations still under the yoke of socialist bureaucracies — such as the NHS and most Town Halls — are notorious for centralised control, waste and almost total lack of accountability.

Whereas once the socialists wanted out of Europe altogether, they now embrace the EU and all its works as a device for imposing their will on an unwilling public. The EU itself is a socialist construct, top-down and anti-democratic.

After the nationalised industries went belly-up, the socialists set about nationalising every aspect of our daily lives, through quangos such as the Health And Safety and Equality Commissions and the ‘human rights’ racket.

The entire ‘diversity’ industry is a socialist front aimed not at eradicating discrimination, but persecuting individuals and criminalising Christianity, which has traditionally been socialism’s sworn enemy.

In the name of ‘equality’, Labour smashed the grammar schools, hobbling social mobility and harming the very people it claimed it was trying to help.

Gordon Brown’s creation of a vast, supplicant state was the imposition of socialism by any other name. He paid for it by letting the banks run riot rather than raising income tax. But the end result was bankruptcy, as it always is under Labour.

Ed Miliband hasn’t yet spelled out his vision of our socialist future, but the policies we know about give us a reasonable idea.

Labour’s answer is a re-run of the tax-and-spend disaster movie which got us into this mess in the first place.

The modern face of socialism manifests itself in the shape of the same old ‘bash the rich’ politics of resentment, a war on wealth creation and a shopping list of generous ‘giveaways’ funded by reckless borrowing and higher taxes.

Ed Miliband’s father could have reminded him of his beloved Karl Marx’s observation that history always repeats itself, ‘first as tragedy, second as farce’. If Britain falls for Miliband’s socialist farce, it really will be a tragedy.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of other countries. The only real difference, however, is how much power they have. In America, their power is limited by democracy. To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges. They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did: None. So look to the colleges to see what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way. It would be a dictatorship.

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Nigel Farage – the only British politician who dares say what we're thinking

By James Delingpole

"When we believe something – we don’t go 'are you thinking what we’re thinking'. We say it out loud."

I like this line from Nigel Farage's UKIP conference address. My Spectator colleague Fraser Nelson thinks the speech was a bit of a let down – which was maybe inevitable given that Farage has had to clip his own wings recently in order to pay more attention to party organisation and party discipline. But for me there was more than enough red meat in it to convince me that UKIP is staying truer to its brand than any of the three other mainstream parties are to theirs.

That paragraph about the Romanian crime wave, for example. You'd never hear Cameron, or Clegg or Miliband getting as near-the-knuckle as this, would you?

"London is already experiencing a Romanian crime wave. There have been an astounding 27,500 arrests in the Metropolitan Police area in the last five years. 92 per cent of ATM crime is committed by Romanians. This gets to the heart of the immigration policy that UKIP wants, we should not welcome foreign criminal gangs and we must deport those who have committed offences."

"No," the usual troll suspects will no doubt say. "But you'd hear it from Nick Griffin…."

And there's your problem, in a nutshell. Since at least the beginning of the Blair era and probably well before, the left has very successfully managed to close down any argument of which it disapproves by crying "racist", "elitist", "homophobe", "NIMBY", "Little Englander", "fascist", or whatever. This has created within the Westminster bubble a culture of caution bordering on cowardice. Before a politician speaks he almost never asks himself: "Is this true?" Rather, he asks himself: "Will this get me into trouble with the BBC?" Which is why, of course, we get politicians like Rachel "Boring" Reeves.

As Fraser Nelson noted in this astute analysis, things have got so bad that even a Conservative prime minister currently doing well in the polls and with a fair economic wind behind him dare not say anything too conservative-sounding except in near-secret, among High Tories, at occasions like the Carlton Club dinner.

Farage, to his credit, isn't having this. He recognises, for example, that the Westminster elite's position on immigration – which boils down, basically, to "racism is bad m'kay?" – doesn't actually reflect how most real people think.

Most real people these days are relaxed about issues like race, religion and ethnicity, but excedingly unrelaxed about issues like thieving gangs or expensive translation services for immigrants who won't learn the language or having parts of their city turned into no-go areas by Islamist thugs. Does this make them racists or natural BNP voters? Nope. It just makes them entirely normal.

You need Eastern European migrants because Britons are too lazy to do some types of work, Bulgaria government tells the Home Office

Australians generally have a similar view of British workers. The hard working ones emigrate to less stifling countries

Britain needs immigrants to do tough jobs because our own workers are too lazy and not willing to work hard enough, or quick enough, the Bulgarian government has said.

In an astonishing report submitted to the Home Office, the Eastern European country dismisses the suggestion that their citizens take part in 'benefit tourism'.

Instead, they argue that Bulgarians who come to the UK are valuable to the economy because they are willing to work in jobs that, they say, Brits would not sacrifice their benefits to take on.

In the document, sent to David Cameron last month in light of the PM's upcoming review of European Union powers, Bulgaria insists that migrants from their country are 'predominantly young, single, relatively well educated'.

They reference a report from the Migration Advisory committee of the Home Office which looked into potential benefits that Romanian and Bulgarian seasonal workers can have on the British economy.

The Bulgarian report, seen by the Observer, says: "Operators and growers are trying unsuccessfully to recruit (and retain) British workers, who are reluctant to live on (be tied to) the farm; either cannot or will not work at the intensity required to earn the agricultural minimum wage and have little incentive to come off social security benefits for seasonal work.

'Bulgarian and Romanian workers in the agricultural sector are presented in the report as highly valued, a stable and reliable source of labour.'

The Bulgarian report will form the basis of their government's defence when David Cameron attempts to limit its citizens' access to public services in the UK such as the NHS, and jobs when the existing immigration arrangements are lifted in 2014.

Conservative back-benchers are calling for the government to sure up the welfare system, making harder for immigrants to get access to services before the gates are opened for Eastern Europeans to live and work in the UK freely next year.

But, preempting that policy maneuvering, the Bulgarian has already begun to fight the corner of its citizens.

They say that access to another nations welfare system is a liberty which is 'rarely abused and do not lead to overburdening of the public services of the latter.'

They add: 'Particularly in the case of Bulgarian and Romanian citizens in the UK, there is no evidence of so-called 'benefit tourism'.

In an attempt to prove their citizens are not interested in taking from the British public purse, Bulgaria refers to official UK government statistics showing that in 2011, 16.6% of working-age Britons were claiming benefits compared with 6.6% of working-age non-UK nationals.

The report said: 'There is no evidence that the UK suffers significantly from benefit tourism. EU migrants do not represent a disproportionate number of benefit claimants – rather the reverse'.

British PM Says Terror Attack Carried Out for Islam has Nothing to do with Islam

Quote:

"Prime Minister David Cameron today condemned as “absolutely sickening” and “despicable” a terror attack on a shopping centre in the Kenyan capital Nairobi in which at least 59 people, including three British nationals, were killed.

“These appalling terrorist attacks that take place where the perpetrators claim they do it in the name of a religion – they don’t,” Cameron said.

He called it “an absolutely sickening and despicable attack of appalling brutality”.

“They do it in the name of terror, violence and extremism and their warped view of the world. They don’t represent Islam or Muslims in Britain or anywhere else in the world.”

Clearly they represent quite a few Muslims. Al-Shabaab has supporters in Somali diaspora communities around the world. One such community in Kenya was likely the source of at least some of the attackers.

Furthermore there are plenty of British Muslims in Al-Shabaab.

The Muslim attackers ordered Muslims to identify themselves, recite a prayer and then be excused from the massacre. Al-Shabaab repeatedly declared that they were acting in the name of Islam. Which is not surprising as they exist to impose an Islamic state.

Announcing that what happened in Kenya has nothing to do with Islam is a good deal like announcing that the USSR had nothing to do with Communism.

Cameron clumsily attempts to distinguish between terror and religion. But terror is a tactic. It can be carried out in the name of politics or religion or both.

Terror is not some isolated entity. Its goal is to achieve political ends by terrorizing people. Muslims rely on terrorism because it allows them to intimidate larger and more civilized societies and then force negotiations.

To deny this or to act as it there is some discontinuity between an ideology and the tactics used to carry it out, as if the two can exist apart from one another, is simply denial.

The Obama administration is finding new ways to use civil-rights laws to attack freedom and common sense. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) last year issued a byzantine “enforcement guidance” to browbeat businesses into ceasing to conduct criminal-background checks on job applicants. The agency’s edict will chill hiring and spur a backlash across the nation.

The 1964 Civil Rights Act created the EEOC. The agency soon began contradicting the law that had created it. The 1964 act explicitly banned racial quotas and specifically required that an employer show an intent to discriminate in order to be found guilty. Sen. Hubert Humphrey, the majority leader in the U.S. Senate, declared, “The express requirement of intent is designed to make it wholly clear that inadvertent or accidental discriminations will not violate the title or result in entry or court orders. It means simply that the respondent must have intended to discriminate.”

However, by the late 1960s the EEOC had sabotaged the law by establishing a definition of discrimination far wider than Congress had authorized. EEOC chairman Clifford Alexander announced in 1968, “We … here at EEOC believe in numbers…. Our most valid standard is in numbers…. The only accomplishment is when we look at all those numbers and see a vast improvement in the picture.” Hugh Davis Graham, in his history The Civil Rights Era, noted of the EEOC’s early top staff, “As the infant EEOC’s brains trust, they began the process of maximizing agency power by subverting the congressional restrictions [on agency power].… By the end of the Johnson Administration the EEOC, by its own self-description, was disregarding Title VII’s intent requirement.”

By the late 1970s the EEOC began stretching Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act to sue businesses for practically any hiring practice that adversely affected minorities. Judges sometimes rebuffed EEOC’s perverse interpretations of civil- rights law, but the agency continually found new pretexts to seize new powers.

The EEOC’s new “enforcement guidance” was spurred by hard facts on hard crimes. Though blacks make up only 13 percent of the U.S. population, more blacks were arrested nationwide for robbery, murder, and manslaughter in 2009 than whites, according to the FBI. The imprisonment rate for black men “was nearly 7 times higher than White men and almost 3 times higher than Hispanic men,” notes the EEOC. Regardless of the crime differentials between different groups, the EEOC talks about the prevalence of criminal records as if it were a near-random event. And since some groups are hit harder by those random occurrences, the EEOC is obliged to forcibly intervene to protect them from “bias.”

The EEOC uncorked more than 20,000 tangled words to sway businesses to forgo criminal-background checks on job applicants. Even though most businesses perform criminal-background checks on job applicants, the EEOC has made that practice far more legally hazardous — and far more likely to provoke a federal lawsuit alleging discrimination. John Hendrickson, a top EEOC attorney in the Midwest, told the Chicago Tribune, “I would suggest to businesses that they think long and hard about why they think they need to do a criminal- background check.”

If a background check discloses a criminal offense, the EEOC expects a company to do an intricate “individualized assessment” that will somehow prove that it has a “business necessity” not to hire the ex-offender (or that his offense disqualifies him for a specific job). Former EEOC general counsel Don Livingston warns that under the new rules, “Employers commit race discrimination if they choose law- abiding applicants over applicants with criminal convictions unless the employer goes through a highly subjective decision-making process that involves the collection of information and weighing of multiple factors, including the individual’s particular circumstances, education and training post-conviction, length and consistency of employment history, and character references.” The EEOC provided little or no guidance on how to prove that not hiring a criminal offender is “consistent with business necessity” or a specific job’s requirements.

It is difficult to overstate the EEOC’s zealotry on this issue. The agency is demanding that one of Livingston’s clients — the Freeman Companies, a convention and corporate-events planner — pay compensation to rejected job applicants who lied about their criminal records.

Catch-22

The biggest bombshell in the new guidance is that businesses that comply with state or local laws requiring employee background checks can still be targeted for EEOC vendettas. This is a key issue in a case the EEOC commenced in 2010 against G4S Secure Solutions (formerly Wackenhut) after it refused to hire a twice-convicted Pennsylvanian thief as a security guard. The EEOC continually broadened its demands to the point where “we are now being asked to defend the use of criminal-background checks in every hiring decision we have made over a period of decades,” G4S general counsel Julie Payne testified to the Civil Rights Commission in December. G4S provides guards for nuclear power plants, chemical plants, government buildings, and other sensitive sites and is prohibited by state law from hiring people with felony convictions as security officers. But the EEOC insists “that state and local laws are preempted by Title VII,” Payne complains.

The EEOC’s new regime leaves businesses in a Catch-22. National Small Business Association president Todd McCracken complained, “State and federal courts will allow potentially devastating tort lawsuits against businesses that hire felons who commit crimes at the workplace or in customers’ homes. Yet the EEOC is threatening to launch lawsuits if they do not hire those same felons.” Naturally, the EEOC will have no liability for any violent rampages that result from its new hiring policy.

The EEOC’s new rules have evoked vigorous opposition from Civil Rights Commissioner Peter Kirsanow, a Cleveland lawyer with a long record of speaking out against abusive federal affirmative-action practices. Kirsanow recently warned, “There is no way to guarantee that you won’t run afoul of the guidance and be subject to a financially ruinous EEOC investigation unless you forego criminal-background checks entirely. If you do that, you have two new potential dangers: lose your state license to operate and possibly be hit with a costly negligent-hiring suit.”

The EEOC refuses to look beyond the groups that its intervention supposedly benefits. Pepsi paid $3.1 million last year to settle an EEOC class-action lawsuit spurred by the company’s refusal to hire people with arrest and conviction records. After Pepsi caved, the EEOC issued a press release referring to the “victims of the former criminal-background check policy” at Pepsi. But the EEOC ignores the victims that will be created when companies bow to federal pressure and add violent employees to their payroll.

The EEOC’s attempt to punish businesses for checking criminal records is already playing out in courtrooms across the nation. In a Maryland case, the lawyer for the Freeman Company requested that the EEOC “quantify the amount of risk of recidivism you contend Defendant [Freeman] is required to tolerate with respect to each crime for each of the jobs listed in Exhibit A, and state your basis for contending that this amount of risk must be tolerated in order to be in compliance with Title VII [of the Civil Rights Act of 1964] when the use of a criminal history background check produces adverse impact” on minority applicants.

The EEOC refused to answer that question, claiming that it had no obligation to show that rejected job applicants with criminal records did not pose excessive risks to fellow employees or customers. There is no chance that the EEOC will specify exactly how many additional thefts and assaults in the workplace it believes are necessary to incarnate its vision of “equal opportunity.”

The EEOC also refuses to disclose whether it uses criminal-background checks for its own hiring. When EEOC Assistant Legal Counsel Carol Miaskoff was challenged on this point in a recent federal case in Maryland, the agency insisted that revealing its hiring policies would violate the “governmental deliberative-process privilege.” But businesses and individuals never have the prerogative to assert their “deliberative-process privilege” when the EEOC is demanding their personnel and other confidential records.

This latest ploy could harm the majority of black and Hispanic job applicants who have clean legal records. Studies published in the Journal of Law and Economics and University of Chicago Legal Forum found that businesses are much less likely to hire minority applicants when background checks are banned.

Congress never intended to give equal opportunity to felons and ex-convicts when it enacted the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The EEOC is enforcing a “law” that Congress would never enact today unless most members want to get bounced out of office at the next election.

Americans can treat ex-offenders humanely without giving them legal advantages over similar persons who avoided doing time. The EEOC’s new regulatory regime will chill hiring across the board and decrease opportunities for both saints and scofflaws. Maybe members of Congress will take time off from making speeches invoking freedom to actually rein in a federal agency trampling Americans’ rights

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of other countries. The only real difference, however, is how much power they have. In America, their power is limited by democracy. To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges. They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did: None. So look to the colleges to see what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way. It would be a dictatorship.

Background

The most beautiful woman in the world? I think she was. Yes: It's Agnetha Fältskog

A beautiful baby is king -- with blue eyes, blond hair and white skin. How incorrect can you get?

Kristina Pimenova, once said to be the most beautiful girl in the world. Note blue eyes and blonde hair

Enough said

A face of Leftist hate: Cory Booker, (D-NJ)

There really is an actress named Donna Air. She seems a pleasant enough woman, though

What feminism has wrought:

There's actually some wisdom there. The dreamy lady says she is holding out for someone who meets her standards. The other lady reasonably replies "There's nobody there". Standards can be unrealistically high and feminists have laboured mightily to make them so

Some bright spark occasionally decides that Leftism is feminine and conservatism is masculine. That totally misses the point. If true, how come the vote in American presidential elections usually shows something close to a 50/50 split between men and women? And in the 2016 Presidential election, Trump won 53 percent of white women, despite allegations focused on his past treatment of some women.

Political correctness is Fascism pretending to be manners

Political Correctness is as big a threat to free speech as Communism and Fascism. All 3 were/are socialist.

The problem with minorities is not race but culture. For instance, many American black males fit in well with the majority culture. They go to college, work legally for their living, marry and support the mother of their children, go to church, abstain from crime and are considerate towards others. Who could reasonably object to such people? It is people who subscribe to minority cultures -- black, Latino or Muslim -- who can give rise to concern. If antisocial attitudes and/or behaviour become pervasive among a group, however, policies may reasonably devised to deal with that group as a whole

Black lives DON'T matter -- to other blacks. The leading cause of death among young black males is attack by other young black males

Leftist logic: There are allegedly no distinctions between groups of humans, yet we're still supposed to celebrate diversity.

Identity politics is a form of racism

'White Privilege'. .. Oh yes. .. That was abundant in the Irish potato famines. ... And in the Scottish Highland Clearances. ...And in transportations to Australia. ... And in Workhouses. ... 'White privilege' was absolutely RIFE!

Psychological defence mechanisms such as projection play a large part in Leftist thinking and discourse. So their frantic search for evil in the words and deeds of others is easily understandable. The evil is in themselves. Leftist motivations are fundamentally Fascist. They want to "fundamentally transform" the lives of their fellow citizens, which is as authoritarian as you can get. We saw where it led in Russia and China. The "compassion" that Leftists parade is just a cloak for their ghastly real motivations

Occasionally I put up on this blog complaints about the privileged position of homosexuals in today's world. I look forward to the day when the pendulum swings back and homosexuals are treated as equals before the law. To a simple Leftist mind, that makes me "homophobic", even though I have no fear of any kind of homosexuals.

But I thought it might be useful for me to point out a few things. For a start, I am not unwise enough to say that some of my best friends are homosexual. None are, in fact. Though there are two homosexuals in my normal social circle whom I get on well with and whom I think well of.

Of possible relevance: My late sister was a homosexual; I loved Liberace's sense of humour and I thought that Robert Helpmann was marvellous as Don Quixote in the Nureyev ballet of that name.

One may say that the person who gets in trouble with drugs is just as dumb without them

I record on this blog many examples of negligent, inefficient and reprehensible behaviour on the part of British police. After 13 years of Labour party rule they have become highly politicized, with values that reflect the demands made on them by the political Left rather than than what the community expects of them. They have become lazy and cowardly and avoid dealing with real crime wherever possible -- preferring instead to harass normal decent people for minor infractions -- particularly offences against political correctness. They are an excellent example of the destruction that can be brought about by Leftist meddling.

I also record on this blog much social worker evil -- particularly British social worker evil. The evil is neither negligent nor random. It follows exactly the pattern you would expect from the Marxist-oriented indoctrination they get in social work school -- where the middle class is seen as the enemy and the underclass is seen as virtuous. So social workers are lightning fast to take children away from normal decent parents on the basis of of minor or imaginary infractions while turning a blind eye to gross child abuse by the underclass

The genetics of crime: I have been pointing out for some time the evidence that there is a substantial genetic element in criminality. Some people are born bad. See here, here, here, here (DOI: 10.1111/jcpp.12581) and here, for instance"

Gender is a property of words, not of people. Using it otherwise is just another politically correct distortion -- though not as pernicious as calling racial discrimination "Affirmative action"

Postmodernism is fundamentally frivolous. Postmodernists routinely condemn racism and intolerance as wrong but then say that there is no such thing as right and wrong. They are clearly not being serious. Either they do not really believe in moral nihilism or they believe that racism cannot be condemned!

Postmodernism is in fact just a tantrum. Post-Soviet reality in particular suits Leftists so badly that their response is to deny that reality exists. That they can be so dishonest, however, simply shows how psychopathic they are.

So why do Leftists say "There is no such thing as right and wrong" when backed into a rhetorical corner? They say it because that is the predominant conclusion of analytic philosophers. And, as Keynes said: "Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back”

Juergen Habermas, a veteran leftist German philosopher stunned his admirers not long ago by proclaiming, "Christianity, and nothing else, is the ultimate foundation of liberty, conscience, human rights, and democracy, the benchmarks of Western civilization. To this day, we have no other options [than Christianity]. We continue to nourish ourselves from this source. Everything else is postmodern chatter."

Consider two "jokes" below:

Q. "Why are Leftists always standing up for blacks and homosexuals?

A. Because for all three groups their only God is their penis"

Pretty offensive, right? So consider this one:

Q. "Why are evangelical Christians like the Taliban?

A. They are both religious fundamentalists"

The latter "joke" is not a joke at all, of course. It is a comparison routinely touted by Leftists. Both "jokes" are greatly offensive and unfair to the parties targeted but one gets a pass without question while the other would bring great wrath on the head of anyone uttering it. Why? Because political correctness is in fact just Leftist bigotry. Bigotry is unfairly favouring one or more groups of people over others -- usually justified as "truth".

One of my more amusing memories is from the time when the Soviet Union still existed and I was teaching sociology in a major Australian university. On one memorable occasion, we had a representative of the Soviet Womens' organization visit us -- a stout and heavily made-up lady of mature years. When she was ushered into our conference room, she was greeted with something like adulation by the local Marxists. In question time after her talk, however, someone asked her how homosexuals were treated in the USSR. She replied: "We don't have any. That was before the revolution". The consternation and confusion that produced among my Leftist colleagues was hilarious to behold and still lives vividly in my memory. The more things change, the more they remain the same, however. In Sept. 2007 President Ahmadinejad told Columbia university that there are no homosexuals in Iran.

It is widely agreed (with mainly Lesbians dissenting) that boys need their fathers. What needs much wider recognition is that girls need their fathers too. The relationship between a "Daddy's girl" and her father is perhaps the most beautiful human relationship there is. It can help give the girl concerned inner strength for the rest of her life.

A modern feminist complains: "We are so far from “having it all” that “we barely even have a slice of the pie, which we probably baked ourselves while sobbing into the pastry at 4am”."

Patriotism does NOT in general go with hostilty towards others. See e.g. here and here and even here ("Ethnocentrism and Xenophobia: A Cross-Cultural Study" by anthropologist Elizabeth Cashdan. In Current Anthropology Vol. 42, No. 5, December 2001).

The love of bureaucracy is very Leftist and hence "correct". Who said this? "Account must be taken of every single article, every pound of grain, because what socialism implies above all is keeping account of everything". It was V.I. Lenin

"An objection I hear frequently is: ‘Why should we tolerate intolerance?’ The assumption is that tolerating views that you don’t agree with is like a gift, an act of kindness. It suggests we’re doing people a favour by tolerating their view. My argument is that tolerance is vital to us, to you and I, because it’s actually the presupposition of all our freedoms. You cannot be free in any meaningful sense unless there is a recognition that we are free to act on our beliefs, we’re free to think what we want and express ourselves freely. Unless we have that freedom, all those other freedoms that we have on paper mean nothing" -- SOURCE

Although it is a popular traditional chant, the "Kol Nidre" should be abandoned by modern Jewish congregations. It was totally understandable where it originated in the Middle Ages but is morally obnoxious in the modern world and vivid "proof" of all sorts of antisemitic stereotypes

What the Bible says about homosexuality:

"Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind; It is abomination" -- Lev. 18:22

In his great diatribe against the pagan Romans, the apostle Paul included homosexuality among their sins:

"For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature. And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.... Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them" -- Romans 1:26,27,32.

So churches that condone homosexuality are clearly post-Christian

Although I am an atheist, I have great respect for the wisdom of ancient times as collected in the Bible. And its condemnation of homosexuality makes considerable sense to me. In an era when family values are under constant assault, such a return to the basics could be helpful. Nonetheless, I approve of St. Paul's advice in the second chapter of his epistle to the Romans that it is for God to punish them, not us. In secular terms, homosexuality between consenting adults in private should not be penalized but nor should it be promoted or praised. In Christian terms, "Gay pride" is of the Devil

The homosexuals of Gibeah (Judges 19 & 20) set in train a series of events which brought down great wrath and destruction on their tribe. The tribe of Benjamin was almost wiped out when it would not disown its homosexuals. Are we seeing a related process in the woes presently being experienced by the amoral Western world? Note that there was one Western country that was not affected by the global financial crisis and subsequently had no debt problems: Australia. In September 2012 the Australian federal parliament considered a bill to implement homosexual marriage. It was rejected by a large majority -- including members from both major political parties. The tide turned in 2017, however, with a public vote authorizing homosexual marriage in Australia

Religion is deeply human. The recent discoveries at Gobekli Tepe suggest that it was religion not farming that gave birth to civilization. Early civilizations were at any rate all very religious. Atheism is mainly a very modern development and is even now very much a minority opinion

"Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!" - Isaiah 5:20 (KJV)

I think it's not unreasonable to see Islam as the religion of the Devil. Any religion that loves death or leads to parents rejoicing when their children blow themselves up is surely of the Devil -- however you conceive of the Devil. Whether he is a man in a red suit with horns and a tail, a fallen spirit being, or simply the evil side of human nature hardly matters. In all cases Islam is clearly anti-life and only the Devil or his disciples could rejoice in that.

And there surely could be few lower forms of human behaviour than to give abuse and harm in return for help. The compassionate practices of countries with Christian traditions have led many such countries to give a new home to Muslim refugees and seekers after a better life. It's basic humanity that such kindness should attract gratitude and appreciation. But do Muslims appreciate it? They most commonly show contempt for the countries and societies concerned. That's another sign of Satanic influence.

And how's this for demonic thinking?: "Asian father whose daughter drowned in Dubai sea 'stopped lifeguards from saving her because he didn't want her touched and dishonoured by strange men'

Islamic terrorism isn’t a perversion of Islam. It’s the implementation of Islam. It is not a religion of the persecuted, but the persecutors. Its theology is violent supremacism.

And where Muslims tell us that they love death, the great Christian celebration is of the birth of a baby -- the monogenes theos (only begotten god) as John 1:18 describes it in the original Greek -- Christmas!

No wonder so many Muslims are hostile and angry. They have little companionship from women and not even any companionship from dogs -- which are emotionally important in most other cultures. Dogs are "unclean"

On all my blogs, I express my view of what is important primarily by the readings that I select for posting. I do however on occasions add personal comments in italicized form at the beginning of an article.

I am rather pleased to report that I am a lifelong conservative. Out of intellectual curiosity, I did in my youth join organizations from right across the political spectrum so I am certainly not closed-minded and am very familiar with the full spectrum of political thinking. Nonetheless, I did not have to undergo the lurch from Left to Right that so many people undergo. At age 13 I used my pocket-money to subscribe to the "Reader's Digest" -- the main conservative organ available in small town Australia of the 1950s. I have learnt much since but am pleased and amused to note that history has since confirmed most of what I thought at that early age.

I imagine that the the RD is still sending mailouts to my 1950s address!

Germaine Greer is a stupid old Harpy who is notable only for the depth and extent of her hatreds

There are also two blogspot blogs which record what I think are my main recent articles here and here. Similar content can be more conveniently accessed via my subject-indexed list of short articles here or here (I rarely write long articles these days)

Note: If the link to one of my articles is not working, the article concerned can generally be viewed by prefixing to the filename the following: http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/42197/20121106-1520/jonjayray.comuv.com/

NOTE: The archives provided by blogspot below are rather inconvenient. They break each month up into small bits. If you want to scan whole months at a time, the backup archives will suit better. See here or here